Thanks for the comments guys
January 2020.
It may be mild but still no butterflies seen since my last outing. Although I’ve seen a few reports of Red Admirals and Peacocks at nearby Epping Forest, that’s not been one of my destinations recently. I’d booked a few days off which helpfully coincided with a reasonable break in wet weather, at least during the day anyway.
On the
9th I ventured down to the Wetland Centre at Barnes, south London. There was no sign of any Bittern today and the sightings board said only one had been seen in recent days. The Wigeon were looking rather smart in the sun.
![IMG_0014.JPG (286.97 KiB) Viewed 726 times Wigeon drake](./files/thumb_13753_bb9a886ef22a4784ea203c1da67603d2)
- Wigeon drake
These two Egyptian Geese provided a handy point of reference when pointing out the only Snipe I saw to other birders.
Gulls were everywhere with first winter Herrings outnumbering all others, here’s two Common Gull closest to the camera (not Britain's commonest Gull), two Black-headed Gull with the red beaks (in there non breeding plumage and lacking the dark brown, not black, breeding plumage heads) and a Lesser Black-back Gull (with it's dark grey back).... common names eh
A few Cormorants were sat around, drying off after a hard mornings fishing but one Crow was being a right little s*&%! There were several around but only this one was causing trouble, persistently creeping up behind them and pecking at them. I’m not entirely sure what the Crow was getting out of it but he was clearly being a right pain in the butt!
![IMG_0059.JPG (267.29 KiB) Viewed 726 times after 5 minutes and a few belligerent 'corrs' he was off to cause trouble elsewhere.](./files/thumb_13753_98e4a5a6e4827cd343301a77fda5d77a)
- after 5 minutes and a few belligerent 'corrs' he was off to cause trouble elsewhere.
Other noteworthy inhabitants today were some Shelduck
and a pair of Pintail, the drake looking particularly splendid.
On the
10th it was off to Bookham for the first visit of the new decade. I didn’t come away with a great deal of pictures. The first thing I did was egg hunting, quickly finding eight Brown Hairstreak along a short stretch of hedgerow.
Banks Common still seems to be empty of lifestock despite the new fence line and large pond being over a year old now, but I did disturb the first Redwings I’ve seen this winter there. Being in the countryside they proved near impossible to approach (the ones that turn up on my local patch are far more approachable), not helped by the ever-present Blackbird shouting my presence from the safety of every bush I tried to sneak past.
![IMG_0004.JPG (406.63 KiB) Viewed 726 times Redwing](./files/thumb_13753_1509170f6e6a8ae00276f7bb84cca5fa)
- Redwing
A quick check on my White Admiral larvae had mixed results. Pete was taking thing esay, still safely tucked up, much like his namesake would have preferred to have been in recent weeks no doubt
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
!
Bad news awaited me further on though, Dave and his hibernaculum were nowhere to be seen
After that is was more a case of just enjoying the afternoon, precious little sat still long enough to point my camera at. Some more egg hunting gave me a final total of just twelve Brown Hairstreaks and no Purples.
Quite a bit more scrub clearance has been going on again this winter, and also, they’ve been cutting down Turkey Oak which will create a few new clearings in the wood. It’ll be interesting to see what effects these will have in the coming months.
I also took a few shots of the Moon in the evening, think I managed to capture the penumbral eclipse with this Gif. The 3 photos used to make it were taken at 19:06, 19:18 and 20:29